CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Can Trump stand the dos? I`m sorry, can he stand the truth? Let`s play HARDBALL.

Good evening, I`m Chris Matthews in Washington.

President Trump is going to war again with the country`s Intel chiefs refusing to back his own director of national intelligence or the CIA director.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you still have confidence in Gina Haspel and Dan Coats to give you good advice?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I disagree with certain things they said. I think I`m right. But time will prove me right probably.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Wow. Yesterday President Trump undercut their assessments as passive and naive saying they should go back to school. Well, part of those attacks the “Washington Post” reports the President now faces an increasingly adversarial Congress from both parties.

The sentence number two Republicans, South Dakota John Thune said I would prefer the President would stay off twitter, particularly with regard to these important national security issues where you have people who are experts and have a background and are professionals.

Another top Republican Missouri senator Roy Blunt told the Post, this is an Intel community that the President has largely put in place. And I have confidence in them. And I think he should, too.

Well, unlike all out Trumpites such as California`s Devin Nunes, these Republicans senators see Congress as independent from the President. They join Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer who effectively argued for an intervention with President Trump.

In a letter to the director of national intelligence Dan Coats, Senator Schumer urged him to impress upon the President how critically important it is for him to join you and the leadership of our intelligence community in speaking with a unified and accurate voice about national security threat ss.

But late afternoon today, the President was trying to put out the fire he started, telling reporters he spoke with his Intel chiefs about their testimony.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, did you talk to your intelligence chiefs today about the displeasure you had with their testimonies?

TRUMP: I did. And they said that they were totally misquoted and they were totally – it was taken out of context. So what I do is I would suggest that you call them. They said it was fake news. So, which frankly, didn`t surprise me.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just ran exactly what was said to Congress.

TRUMP: Excuse me, it didn`t surprise me at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, he followed that with tweet including a photo of his meeting with his Intel team saying that they had been mischaracterized that on a second tweet added we are all on the same page.

I`m join right now by California congressman, Ted Lieu, a Democrat who serves on the House foreign affairs committee and also judicial committee. Shannon Pettypiece, White House reporter for “Bloomberg News” and Evan McMullin, a former CIA operative and former independent presidential candidate.

Congressman Lieu, what is going on here? Why is this president so willing - maybe a say more different question. Why are Republicans like John Thune of South Dakota and Roy Blunt of Missouri, these regular Republicans, for the first time we are seeing Republicans saying to the President you are off base, pay attention to the intelligence community and stop fighting them.

REP. TED LIEU (D-CA), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Thank you Chris for your question. Let me first say, today is Thursday that means Donald Trump is lying again. These intelligence chiefs would not misquoted because they were giving their live testimony before the Senate. It was all capture on videotape. And they have submitted written statements, all of which contradict Donald Trump. And you see Republicans now going against the President because one of the things has made America great is we rely on facts or intelligence community or our department of defense, we innovate, we have a strong military, strong intelligence community because we rely on facts and the President is not. And that is why I think you see this strong pushback.

MATTHEWS: Do you think – I know you are a Democrat and proud to be so, but do you think it might be that the Republican Party actually exists for a reason? That they have a long stretch of years during the world war especially where they are very proud of being the hardline party on foreign affairs and defense. That they took pride in that. They weren`t the ones that was loosy goosy about the threats around the world. That they took them damn seriously. They used to – before Trump came along.

LIEU: That`s correct. I also think last November`s elections did have a result that changed some minds in the Republican Party. The Republicans got crushed. They have lost by the largest popular vote margin in U.S. history and I think that`s making more Republicans stand up to the President because they also see that they have to win their own reelections.

MATTHEWS: Shannon, what`s his problem? I mean, it`s like an eight-year-old kid says I`m not eating my peas. I`m not doing - I`m not putting on my clothes today I supposed. I`m not doing anything right because I`m a little kid.

SHANNON PETTYPIECE, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, BLOOMBERG NEWS: I think it reflects two personality traits we have seen throughout his presidency. The first is his inability to see anything outside of himself. His inability to see the bigger picture. And some people will call that narcissism. But even people close to him, even people who like him will tell you that he is a narcissist. He has trouble seeing anything outside of himself. So if the intelligence doesn`t reflect properly on him, he will attack the intelligence.

And I think the other fact is he has a hard time seeing who his friends and who his enemies are. Your enemies are Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin. Your enemies are not the intelligence community. It is not Gina Haspel or Coats, you know. He can`t see who his friends and his real enemies are here. And so he is lashing out at them while, again, not seeing the bigger foreign policy implication of attacking the intelligence community and then cozying up to authoritarian leaders.

MATTHEWS: Congressman I heard your guffaw there. This psychological – have you seen it before where a person sees every criticism as an enemy who is a critic. In other words he doesn`t listen to criticism, he just says this guy turned on me. It`s all about this person looking out and seeing enemies.

LIEU: I have some acquaintances like that but the President of the United States should never be like that. And that is why I think you have more and more Republicans standing up to the president because they also took an oath. And it wasn`t to Donald Trump or to a political party. It was through the constitution of the United States and to protect it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And you are seeing both House of Congress now much more willing to stand up to the President who really does shows a very tenuous relationship with the facts.

MATTHEWS: Evan, you have been in the service. You have been undercover like everybody else in the agency. You have a deal with danger. What about the man or woman who is out there in some tricky spot right now, maybe in Iran, maybe Russia or maybe North Korea. We have them everywhere and they are facing execution if they are picked up. They have to lie about everything they do with their whole life. It`s always scary and it`s unnerving. And then you hear the President of the United States is trashing their agency, trashing truth.

EVAN MCMULLIN, FORMER CIA OPERATIVE: He is and –

MATTHEWS: What do they say? Who is this character?

MCMULLIN: Right. Look, I think it`s demoralizing to a degree but these people, I know them. They are so committed to their mission. They are going to continue more. But it does have an impact on the foreigners that they work with. And many people don`t fully realize that we depend on our – to achieve our national security objective, we often, almost all the time depend on foreign partners either (INAUDIBLE) or otherwise. And when they see this kind of thing happening inside our country with our leadership, it makes them less confident, less sure that they can collaborate and work with us towards keeping our border –

MCMULLIN: Who would want to be recruited by Donald Trump? Is that the question you are asking?

MCMULLIN: Donald Trump wouldn`t be doing recruiting but he is perhaps been recruited. But I think that is the impact. But the other thing is this.

MATTHEWS: You think he might have been recruited by the Russians?

MCMULLIN: Well, I`m sort of being tongue in cheek here. But I do think the President is clearly under the influence of Russians.

MATTHEWS: Well, the FBI investigated him as he was coming into office.

MCMULLIN: I have been saying it for almost three years now, so yes.

MATTHEWS: But the FBI actually - they went after. They stick themselves on him saying this guy is acting like an agent.

MCMULLIN: That`s right. We will know. We will find out more in time as these investigations go forward about that.

But I have to say this. There are two big reasons why Donald Trump`s failure to accept the facts about national security matter. Number, one is our security agencies depend on authorities from the President in order do their work. Sometimes they literally can`t do things if the President won`t allow them to do things. And if he is operating on totally imaginary set of facts that means it`s harder for him probably to get his support for things. The other things –.

MATTHEWS: The need funding, right.

MCMULLIN: They funding, exactly or other approvals from the administration. The other thing is this. As the President continues to message that North Korea is as much of a problem as it actually is, that ISIS is defendant even though it isn`t and that Russia isn`t a problem like it is. If he continues to message like this or as he does, he builds a constituency that also believes.

That`s why you see even as Congressman Lieu saying correctly that Congress is now standing up to Trump more, you see Republicans sort of divided on, for example, keeping sanctions on the companies of Russian oligarchs.

In the past, it would have been a no brainer, almost unanimous Republican vote. Now it isn`t. So the reason for that is Trump is creating a constituency for a failure to confront and handle these real national security challenges because he has got the Presidential bully pulpit and that`s what he uses it for.

MATTHEWS: Well, the Senate delivered another rebuke to the President late today by backing majority leader Mitch McConnell`s amendment disapproving the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and Syria by a vote of, look at this, 68-23. By the way, that`s an impeachable and convicting number, by the way. You only need 67 to get rid of a President.

Republican John Kennedy of Louisiana voted against the amendment telling NBC News our Middle East policy right now looks like something my dog has been keeping under the back porch. Nobody knows what it is but it`s ugly.

Congress, I heard another guffaw from you. I don`t know. This is disturbing you a lot but this is our President and you know it better than I do. This guy doesn`t seem to have coherence and he reason I said coherence in our foreign policies. He refused to be a team member even with his own team, which is strange behavior.

LIEU: I`m on the House foreign affairs committee. And thank goodness now Democrats control. We are going to call in administration witnesses and ask them just simple question such as what is your strategy in Syria. What is in Afghanistan?

I do want to make one more point about the Intel chiefs` testimony. If you read the written statements, if you watch what they said yesterday, they don`t talk about the southern border at all. And now we have a President who is imagining this virtual invasion, his own words, at the southern border when that doesn`t exist. So we have some clear problems at the very top of our leadership and hopefully we can correct it as Congress continue to sort this through.

MATTHEWS: Why is he saying something that has no basis in fact in terms of national security? Why does he keeps saying it? What`s your reading?

LIEU: He did make a campaign promise saying that he would build a wall and Mexico was going to fund it. And he feels like he has to deliver on it. Unfortunately, he hasn`t been able to get Mexico to fund it and Congress is certainly not in a mood to fund it right now.

MATTHEWS: Is Congress any more likely to pay for that wall than the Mexican government?

LIEU: Look, can I vote for something that`s wasteful and inefficient and basically sort of stupid? I could if I get a lot of things in exchange or close to our values such as providing a pathway to citizenship for millions of people, I would absolutely consider that. But I`m not just going to vote for a straight up and inefficient wall when there`s no invasion, when border crossing is on a 20-year low and violent crime is down across United States.

MATTHEWS: Thank you so much, Congressman Ted Lieu of California.

By the way, some Senate Republicans are also urging President Trump to stay on the fight of the border wall funding. The “Washington Post” reports two senior GOP aides said Trump and other top officials have continued to float a national emergency declaration to secure money for a border wall though there is a quote “widespread resistance” to it within the Senate.

The President was asked about that prospect today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: What`s been holding you back from declaring a national emergency, MR. President?

TRUMP: We are going to see what happens on February 15th.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: Are you concerned about legal challenges?

TRUMP: No, I`m not concerned. I`m not concerned.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE REPORTER: You still don`t think there is going to be a deal but you are going to declare it now. Don`t you think that undermines –?

MATTHEWS: What`s he up to? Is he trashing the idea of a conference agreement between the House and the Senate so that he can go to a declaration of national emergency?

PETTYPIECE: So I think the White House feels that they have a national emergency in their back pocket. And they can pull it out if things don`t happen in Congress. That interesting question when they asked are you worried about legal challenges and he says no I`m not. Well, I think he might be saying because if there are legal challenges, then I will just blame the court for why I don`t have the wall and I can do my, you know, bashing of the judiciary system along the way. And so it fits in fine. But the White House is really - they have really stayed out.

MATTHEWS: So blame Nancy Pelosi first and blaming the courts.

PETTYPIECE: Right. If you declare national emergency and the courts block it and then in 2020 comes you don`t have a wall, you can say, well, that`s because of the courts, these activist judges.

MATTHEWS: Do you think they are all so – this is a political call, Shannon. Can you call this - well, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter accept that as a good E for effort?

PETTYPIECE: Well, the positive thing for their messaging is it that it fits in with this this is why you need Trump for another four years to remake the judiciary. Look at how the Supreme Court has overstepped its bound chair. This is why we need to reelect Trump so we can get more of our justices on the Supreme Court or in district court. So it could actually work out for the messaging wise, OK.

MATTHEWS: So the more I fail the more you need me?

PETTYPIECE: Right. And you could get a second term to build your wall.

MATTHEWS: I don`t think he is going to get a second term no matter what.

Anyway. Congressman Ted Lieu, thank you sir.

Shannon Pettypiece, thank you.

And Evan McMullin, thank you.

Coming up, with 15 days until another possible shutdown, President Trump digs in his heels and says it`s a wall or nothing.

And a big development in the Roger Stone investigation. Mueller`s team describe the evidence seized in that predawn raid down there is Ft. Lauderdale, catch this, voluminous and complex spending several years. What does that mean for President Trump and the Russia investigation? Lots more work to dig through.

And remember this?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Months ago we broke ground on a plant that will provide jobs for much more than 13,000 Wisconsin workers. I will tell you they would haven`t done it here except that I became President so that`s good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, not so true.

Anyway, it looks like those 13,000 jobs President Trump promised as a candidate won`t be coming to Wisconsin any time soon.

We are back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I have told a lot of people, I don`t expect much coming out of the committee because I keep hearing the words, we will give you what you want but we are not going to give you a wall. And the problem is, if they don`t give us a wall, it doesn`t work. Without a wall, it doesn`t work. I don`t think they are going to make a deal. I see what is happening. They all said, let`s do this but we are not giving one dime for the wall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

That was President Trump obviously today already predict the efforts by that group of lawmakers tasked with finding a wall, the compromise will fail. There are only 15 days now before the country faces another possible government shutdown. But the President says if the deal doesn`t include funding for his border wall he won`t even read the compromise.

This morning, House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she there will be no money for the wall but she left the door open to other types of fencing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), HOUSE SPEAKER: There is not going to be any wall money in the legislation. Is there a placed for enhancing fencing? Normandy fencing would work. Let them have that discussion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: President Trump rejected that possibility.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: No, because if there`s no wall it doesn`t work. She is just playing games. By the way, if you go do Tijuana and you take down that wall, you will have so many people coming into our country that Nancy Pelosi will be begging for a wall. She will be begging for a wall. She will say Mr. President please, please, give us a wall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, the President`s remarks today followed a slew of morning tweets about the southern border. He warned about new migrant caravans. He said he was sending more troops to the border and he backtracked from his previous language about steel slats and barriers stating a wall is a wall. He added the wall is getting done one way or the other.

I`m joined now by Julian Castro, former secretary of Housing and urban development under President Obama and a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

Thank you so much, Mr. Secretary. And I guess, I`m asking you now to imagine you are president not this character. What would you do if there was this kind of debate was going on? What compromise would you offer from the Democratic side if you did offer one?

JULIAN CASTRO (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, it is good to be with you, Chris. First of all, if I were President we wouldn`t be in this mess.

But what strikes me about the mess that we are in, totally of President Trump`s creation, is that this is essentially the definition of insanity on his part. You know, they say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.

And he`s walking right into that, as we approach February 15. And so it`s clear that Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats have offered compromise on border security, because Democrats do believe in border security, investing in personnel, investing in better technology, securing our ports of entry.

We had a great example of why that`s important today out in Arizona. They had one of the largest busts of fentanyl that was coming through one of the ports of entry, 254 pounds of that.

And so, if we want to get border security, we can get there. What we`re not going to have is a wall. It`s ineffective. And I believe that it would ultimately change the notion of America from one of the Statue of Liberty that welcomes immigrants, that stands for freedom and opportunity, to a wall, where this country literally blocks itself off from the rest of the world.

And, over time, that would change who we are as Americans. So, in addition to being ineffective, I believe that we shouldn`t do it, because that`s not who we are as a country.

MATTHEWS: Well said.

According to Politico, the White House is finalizing details for the president to be able to declare a national emergency if he doesn`t get funding for his wall – quote – “The behind-the-scenes maneuvers indicate the administration wants to be poised to quickly declare a national emergency, should Trump choose to do so,” by the way, “by the time Congress hits its February 15 deadline.”

Well, you`re a politician. You`re running for president. Look, what do you think Trump is up to?

It looks like he`s setting up a blame scenario, where: I wanted to negotiate for the wall, but they wouldn`t do it even through this House-Senate conference. The courts may stop me. But I`m going to be known as the Horatio at the gates. I`m going to be the one they`re fighting for the wall against everybody else.

And that seems to be the role he`s auditioning for, if you put it that way.

CASTRO: Whatever he`s after here.

You know, I think that this is a political ploy to try and keep his base, as he recognizes that his support across the country is falling. I mean, you have – you have covered on your program, Chris, that he`s seen his support drop significantly over the last few weeks, especially with the shutdown.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

CASTRO: And I think this is a ploy.

But if he does go ahead and declare a national emergency, that will set a terrible precedent of using the notion of a national emergency for political purposes. And I think that there are a lot of things that we might consider a national emergency that Republicans might not want.

You know, I think, just a month-and-a-half ago, we got a report that essentially says that the threat of climate change is a national emergency. So I don`t want to get into a back and forth based on who`s in the White House and declaring something like a national emergency that should only be used in the most urgent of times, with real, pressing needs.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

Let me ask you about a scenario. Next Tuesday night, State of the Union, it`s going to happen. The president of the United States walks in, “Mr. Speaker, the president of the United States,” will all that pomp and circumstance.

He walks in. Sitting behind him will be Mike Pence, looking at him in that sort of a choirboy, weird way he looks at him, and the speaker of the House.

And he says, the only thing stopping us from having a wall and having border security is that person behind me here.

I mean, I think it has a sort of a high noon aspect to it, don`t you think? And isn`t that the reason why the speaker didn`t want to have – give him that night? I`m thinking about television. He`s about 40 percent now maybe, depending on your poll. He gets a bump of five or seven points, five points maybe, he`s back in the game.

What would you do to stop him? You don`t see it that way?

CASTRO: Well, I hear what you`re saying.

Yes, I believe that what Speaker Pelosi did made sense. Look, it ended up that they delayed it by only a week, from January 29 to February 5. It is true that, as somebody who has attended as a Cabinet member a couple of State of the Union speeches, that that is the day where you have all but one significant member of the federal government in terms of leadership there in the same room.

MATTHEWS: Right.

CASTRO: And so you do need security to be at its tightest.

But at the end of the day, the American people can clearly see what the problem is here. Poll after poll shows that the American people understand that this is about Donald Trump and his unreasonable demand for a wall.

So, yes, he may get – and I`m sure he`s going to do something like that on Tuesday. He may get a temporary bump of a couple of points. But, at the end of the day, people realize that the United States does not need a wall, that it`s a political ploy for his base, and that if a wall actually were ever built, that it would do more damage to this country than good.

MATTHEWS: Well said.

Anyway, meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is calling a voting rights proposal by House Democrats that would make Election Day a federal holiday a political power grab by the Democrats.

Let`s listen to him, McConnell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MAJORITY LEADER: Just what America needs, another paid holiday and a bunch of government workers being paid to go out and work, I assume, our folks on – our colleagues on the other side, on their campaigns.

This is the Democrat plan to restore democracy, a brand-new week of paid vacation for every federal employee who would like to hover around while you cast your ballot?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: What do you make of that scenario that he`s cooking up there, federal employees who are Hatched, and aren`t allowed to do this under the Hatch Act, hovering around while Democrats vote?

Your thoughts?

CASTRO: Yes, you got to give him a little bit of points for creativity there.

(LAUGHTER)

CASTRO: But the fact is that it is something else that you have a political party, the Republican Party, whose basic position is, no, we don`t want more people to be able to vote in this country. We don`t want folks to be able to do this conveniently.

And the thing is that this isn`t the only way that they accomplish that, by trying to deny a federal holiday, which I think would be good to allow folks who have to work – a lot of folks, they start a shift early, and they end late. And even if there`s early voting, it`s a challenge to get out to the voting booth.

But you see voter I.D. You see all sorts of political gymnastics with redistricting. You see what happened in Texas just this week, where they said that there were 95,000 people registered on the Texas rolls who they said initially were non-citizens, and then they had to backtrack completely and say, oops, we made a mistake. Actually, they are citizens.

So it is something else that, in the 21st century, we have a party that bases its success on keeping people away from the franchise. And my hope is that this federal holiday will pass.

The other thing that I remember, and I`m sure you will remember, Chris, is, in the early `80s, when several of the folks opposed a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. And these are the same people that, in some states, they celebrate Robert E. Lee Day.

It just makes no sense. It`s completely out of step with where we`re at today in the country – or maybe better said, temporarily, it`s in step with Donald Trump`s America.

MATTHEWS: I think democratic should mean democratic. The more voters, the better. In fact, everybody should vote. And the easier they make it, the better for our democracy.

MATTHEWS: Up next: Federal investigators are digging through terabytes, huge bytes of data – that`s a lot of data – from hard drives seized from Trump ally – erstwhile ally – Roger Stone. He`s got a lot of stuff in his basement. And now the Mueller team have it in their possession.

The self-described dirty trickster and what is going to reveal from all that, and what will it mean for the Russia investigation? Well, it`s going to take a little longer, but it`s going to be a lot more interesting.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

There was a big development today in the case against former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone. Robert Mueller`s team revealed that the evidence seized in that predawn raid was voluminous and complex.

The evidence includes multiple hard drives containing several terabytes of information and communications that span several years. The special counsel cited that evidence in a motion to delay Stone`s trial, saying the FBI needs more time to review it.

Stone, who was indicted last week on multiple counts of obstruction, making false statements and witness tampering, confirmed today that the evidence against him is voluminous.

Let`s watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

QUESTION: The special counsel`s latest filing, it says the evidence – evidence against you is voluminous and complex.

Does that scare you at all?

ROGER STONE, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER: My attorneys have agreed to that. It is so voluminous and complex that a speedy trial is literally impossible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Joining me right now is former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance and former federal prosecutor Paul Butler.

Joyce, this material, it sounds like it`s a lifetime of dirty tricks, all contained in the electronics there. They got it all.

JOYCE VANCE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: A terabyte is lot of data, Chris.

For comparison, audio files vs. video files, it`s video files that you see in discovery when there`s this much. “Led Zeppelin IV” goes on for 42 minutes, and it`s only something like 97 megabytes. A megabyte, there are a million of them in a terabyte.

So prosecutors have a lot of evidence against Stone. And I`m betting that a lot of it is video or maybe some large dumps of data.

You might find all this stuff about posts, personal life that may be interesting, but has no material relevance to this question of the Mueller probe.

PAUL BUTLER, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: So, the lawyers will make arguments about what`s admissible and what`s not, and the judge will decide.

In terms of the motion today, it`s to get more time, because the evidence is supposedly so complicated. The main charge against Stone is false statements. I think it`s an easy case for Mueller.

The defense to false statements is either, I told the truth, or what I lied about wasn`t material.

But Mueller has a whole treasure trove of e-mails, text messages, other documents that prove that Stone lied about things that are at the heart of the Russia investigation.

MATTHEWS: Let`s get to that.

(CROSSTALK)

BUTLER: Yes.

So, a great lawyer, a great trial lawyer like Joyce could, just with what is in the public record, convict Roger Stone tomorrow.

MATTHEWS: Well, Joyce, it seems to me that, like in Watergate – and a lot of these seem to parallel Watergate – there`s the underlying crime of dealing with the Russians, and then all the subterfuge to hide it.

And in the case of the charges made last week against – against Stone, they were lying, and obstruction, and tampering with witnesses, and everything. We all got a pretty good picture of that.

But what – isn`t the real goal of Mr. Mueller to prove that the Trump people were dealing with the Russians? Is that going to be in that vat of – that vat of terabytes?

VANCE: Well, I think Mueller`s goal is to prosecute people for crimes that he uncovers.

And you`re absolutely right. His overarching goal, the mission Rod Rosenstein gave him is to answer the question, was there collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, with the goal of influencing the election?

But prosecutors don`t go straight to that final question. You have to go through each of the building blocks in a corruption case. It is frustrating for the public. I have been through this in cases that we did, where everybody thought we should have been faster and more direct.

But the reality is, these are tough cases to make. And you go a step at a time.

MATTHEWS: Do you think this is going to delay the whole operation, the fact that you have got all this treasure trove of Roger Stone, who is the guy who said that John Podesta is going to have his time in the barrel?

Well, now he`s in a barrel, to use that crude reference. Does this mean we`re going to have a wait a couple months, at least, to find out what the truth is, Joyce?

VANCE: Absolutely. Absolutely.

This will delay the trial. You get – as a prosecutor, you get 70 days from the date of the indictment to take the defendant to trial. Now all of the time that`s involved in discovery and other pending elections will be excluded.

That means that 70 – 70 days could run on for several months at least.

MATTHEWS: Paul?

BUTLER: There`s a reason that the special prosecutor always gets his man.

Every person who he has jurisdiction against who he has prosecuted has either pled guilty or been brought to justice, been convicted in a court of law, because he prepares very carefully.

And so I agree with Joyce. I think that this motion today is really about the next set of indictments, the indictment against Roger Stone for collusion, for conspiring with the Russians to deploy the hack e-mails in a way that would benefit the Trump campaign.

MATTHEWS: It always looked like that`s what happened.

Meanwhile, in an interview yesterday, Trump said he thought the way Roger Stone was arrested was very unusual, noting that: “When you have 29 people, and you have armored vehicles – Roger is not a person would have – you would have to worry about from that standpoint. And I thought it was sad to see it, very sad.”

Well, in the past, Trump has not had – has had a very different take on how law enforcement should treat suspected criminals. Watch him here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough.

I said, please don`t be too nice. Like, when you guys put somebody in the car, and you`re protecting their head, you know, the way you put the hand -- like, don`t hit their head, and they have just killed somebody. Don`t hit their head.

I said, you can take the hand away, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: It`s – that is street corner B.S.

BUTLER: Yes.

MATTHEWS: You know who he`s playing to there.

BUTLER: Yes.

And it`s bad enough that the president said it, but for those law enforcement officers to sit there and laugh at it, it…

MATTHEWS: Well, some did. Some of them were a little bit rejecting it. It was embarrassing…

BUTLER: Yes.

MATTHEWS: … to have a president say, beat up the kid on the way the court. I mean…

BUTLER: Yes.

And so, in that light, how should we think about this search, this rate of Roger Stone? So it was both legal and I think over the top; 29 law enforcement agents with long guns, 12 police cars, 6:00 a.m., again, I think that was a bit extra.

The reason I`m not shedding any crocodile tears over Roger Stone is because the police treat poor black folks like this all the time.

Roger Stone in other ways is getting the same kind of justice that other rich white dudes get. For example, even though he`s charged with witness intimidation, he didn`t have to pay a penny in bail. He walked out of that courtroom on his own recognizance.

If he were a black man, he would be locked up until trial.

MATTHEWS: They`re already figuring out which jail they want to go to. Are they going to go to the special one? Like, Cohen has got his eye on one. It`s amazing.

Thank you so much for your history of experience here.

Thank you, Joyce Vance. And thank you, Paul Butler.

Up next: Candidate Trump ran on bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., especially to the Industrial Midwest. How`s that working out so far?

We will be back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

Donald Trump was elected on the promise he would bring his self-described -- self-described business prowess to the White House. He also vowed to bring thousands of manufacturing jobs back into the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I built an unbelievable business, a great, great business, some of the greatest assets in the world.

Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences. Not going to happen.

You know, don`t forget, I`ve been in business. I`ve made a lot of money which I`m going to do for the country now. I`ve been focused on jobs and money and deals, and that`s what I do. And that`s what the country needs.

I`ve always loved business. I`ve always been good at building things and I`ve always been very successful at making money.

People are sick and tired of being ripped off with our jobs leaving our states, with our jobs leaving our country with the money. They get the money, they get the jobs, we get nothing.

TRUMP: Since my election, Ford, Fiat Chrysler, General Motors, Sprints, Softbank, Lockheed, Intel, Walmart and many others have announced that they will invest billions and billions of dollars in the United States and will create tens of thousands of new American jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: But much like his business past, all that he says glitters is not gold.

Shortly after passing a sweeping tax cut last year that slashed corporate tax rates, a number of companies that Trump proudly touted as examples of his success began laying off thousands of workers. In May, Harley-Davidson which was welcomed to the White House to tout the return of manufacturing announced it was closing its Kansas City plant and laying off 800 workers.

In June, General Motors announced it would shut down plants in Maryland, Ohio and Michigan and slash up to 14,000 jobs. And in July, Carrier, which got a $7 million tax break from the Trump administration, announced it was cutting more than 500 jobs out in Indiana.

But those aren`t the only examples of Trump`s broken promises. And the latest one might be the most embarrassing yet for Trump.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Well, yesterday, it was announced that a Taiwan-based company, Foxconn, was rethinking its plan to bring 13,000 new jobs to Wisconsin.

Well, back in July of 2017, President Trump and the former Republican governor of that state, Scott Walker, announced with much fanfare the plan far $10 billion plant. And ever since then, the plant has been and its jobs it would create had been a feather in the president`s cap.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We are bringing back new companies like you`ve never seen, including Foxconn in Wisconsin. We brought them in to Wisconsin and they`re coming and many other companies are coming.

Moments ago, we broke ground on a plant that will provide jobs for much more than 13,000 Wisconsin workers.

I will tell you, they wouldn`t have done it except that I became president so that`s good.

We just left Wisconsin and what Foxconn is building up in Wisconsin is literally – and I said it – the eighth wonder of the world. It`s credible what they`re doing, 15,000 jobs. It`s going to cost $15 billion. It is something that is so incredible. You have to go see it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, in return for Foxconn`s promise to build in Wisconsin, state and local governments promised to give the company $4 billion in public subsidies. Earlier today during a manufacturing event at the White House the president, who never misses an opportunity to tout his role in the Foxconn deal, made no mention of the news.

For more, I`m joined by Molly Beck, a reporter of “The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel”, and David Cay Johnston, author of “It`s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America”.

Molly, is this whole thing by Foxconn a scam? What are they up to? Are they just dead beats?

MOLLY BECK, STATE POLITICS REPORTER, MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL: Well, we`re not sure what Foxconn`s plans are at the moment. A couple – about a year and a half ago, they and former Governor Scott Walker brokered a deal that would bring 13,000 jobs to Wisconsin in exchange for a $10 billion plant in Wisconsin, and that would be Foxconn`s first U.S.-based plant. And it was a very big deal, as you noted before.

And in recent days, we`ve seen a couple of news reports that have indicated that Foxconn is considering changing its plans. They`re considering not having the manufacturing focus to it that they had once promoted. And that`s what this – the incentive package that taxpayers are backing, that`s what it was billed to be was a manufacturing project.

But now, they`re talking about making it mostly engineers and researchers. Foxconn is still saying that they are planning to bring 13,000 jobs to Wisconsin, but it`s not clear exactly what they`re going to be doing in Wisconsin.

MATTHEWS: Well, if it`s not a manufacturing plant and it doesn`t involve hiring factory workers, how do you get to 13,000? You are going to have 13,000 engineers sitting around thinking.

BECK: And that`s the big question right now because, you know, a lot of people are having trouble finding engineers to hire anyway. So, and even when it was going to be a manufacturing focus, there was a question about how they would find that many people to work there because there is a worker shortage in Wisconsin right now.

MATTHEWS: David, is this emblematic of the trumped-up notions that this guy – the president`s bringing all these manufacturing jobs back to the Industrial Midwest?

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON, FOUNDER, DCREPORT.ORG: It`s exactly that, Chris. And, you know, it`s classic Donald Trump. You promise the sun, moon and stars, and what you really do is put a couple of pebbles in their shoes. The Foxconn plan was heavily defendant on their being free to pollute Lake Michigan and go back to the days when, remember the Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969 for the umpteenth time. They wanted air pollution exemptions and the idea that they were going to have 13,000 jobs building flat panel display screens, that`s a pretty inefficient company. I mean, this was a con job from the beginning.

MATTHEWS: What about the other examples, GM and places like that, Carrier. They all fit the pattern of, you know, dusters, didn`t happen?

JOHNSTON: Well, companies have been doing what`s in their own interest. The Carrier plant, Donald went in, you know, and said he`d saved all these jobs. Well, they`re all gone. You`ve had the local steel president on your show. And these other companies are making decisions that are in the best interest of the shareholders of those companies and the long-term needs of the companies.

And all Donald is doing is claiming credit for things that in many cases were already in the works. He claimed credit for a huge Exxon-Mobil investment. It turned out this was their standard capital investment plan for the next 10 years. There were other plans he claims credit for that were actually written about and announced before the election in 2016.

MATTHEWS: Molly, there`s a whole question here about whether this kind of public policy works. I mean, can you get a company to operate against its economic interest with a tax incentive, or some – you know, we`ll layoff of pollution standards. That does really change the company`s decision about a big manufacturing plant?

BECK: Well, right now, what we`re hearing is that, you know, the industry – the environment right now for companies like Foxconn, as your, you know, watchers might know, that they are a big Apple manufacturer and there are sluggish sales for Apple right now.

MATTHEWS: I see.

BECK: And so what year hearing is that is contributing to their decision to rethink what they`re going to do in Wisconsin.

MATTHEWS: I`m sure the company didn`t get where it got by making dumb decisions based on what Trump told them.

Anyway, thank you, Molly Beck, covering for “The Milwaukee Journal.”

BECK: Thanks for having me.

MATTHEWS: And, David Cay Johnston, as always, sir.

Up next, why Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play major league ball, gave up on the Republican Party. It`s a hell of a story that hasn`t been written about.

Back in a minute.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Back to HARDBALL.

Today would be Jackie Robinson`s 100th birthday. And to those of us who grew up loving baseball, this is a monumental anniversary, because the name was not just an all-time great but the first African-American to play in the big leagues.

Everyone who has any brains or anything important knows Robinson was up against things like that in the year just after World War II. They also know the courage and discipline it took for this man to represent not just himself but his community and his country as gracefully as he did. The abuse Robinson took including from other dugouts was public and unashamed. Rival ball players didn`t mind showing their objection to sharing the diamond with him. The taunting from the Phillies dugout was notorious.

I wasn`t old enough to see all this, but I did see the legacy. For years, African-American fans in Philadelphia made a point of sitting on the third base side of old Connie Mack Stadium, rooting for the visiting Brooklyn Dodgers with Jackie Robinson and the New York Giants with Willie Ways. The Phillies waited a decade to open their line up.

People today would be surprised, by the way, about Jackie Robinson`s politics. A committed Republican, he rooted for Richard Nixon in 1960 and even ended up voting against him however. He voted for him against John F. Kennedy.

By 1968, Robinson changed his vote to the Democrat, Hubert Humphrey. The reason for the switch could be found in history. A Republican Party that included a huge moderate electorate in the North, Midwest and West was now gone South.

Richard Nixon had gone with the Southern strategy and left Republicans like Jackie Robinson betrayed. A party that won almost 40 percent of the African-American vote in 1952 now is lucky to get single digits.

And that`s HARDBALL for now.

“ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES” starts right now.

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